Research Books

I agree with the former Speaker, this is a very important history of the Army in the "'tween years" of the 20's and 30's. The Wehrmacht was way ahead in their understanding of the tanks and tactics. The funniest story in the book is where Patton decides to join the Cavalry so that he can play polo after he is censured for his apostasy on tank warfare as independent of the infantry. We were lucky.

When this book first came out in 1998 it addressed arguably the top priority in national defense planning - how can we ensure that this "peace dividend" is used to develop truly innovative military technology and doctrine? With the events of September 11th and the ushering in of the War on Terror the issue of technology innovation - often covered by the umbrella term "Revolution in Military Affairs" - has certainly slipped down the priority scale, but it would be unwise to suggest that it has lost any of its core relevance.

RAND analyst David Johnson hammers home on a few themes in "Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers." First, he stresses that the primary lesson learned coming out of WWI, at least from the perspective of the top Army brass, was the central importance of mass mobilization of personnel and efficient, large-scale production of supplies and machinery, which to, among other things, the establishment of the Army Industrial College in 1924. Technology was viewed as important, but clearly auxiliary to men and manpower. In the 1920s a deep sense of isolationism and then in the 1930s the economic impact of the Depression kept Army budgets low. The Army chose to allocate its limited resources to maintaining their manpower, which was less than 50% of the limits set by the 1920 National Defense Act. As Army budgets dropped 20%, personnel never slipped more than 5%. Johnson's central argument is that the Army slipped behind in tank technology and doctrine primarily because the Army leadership made a conscious decision to not invest resources in those areas. In the end, it was wrong of them to point a finger at a stingy Congress or an ungrateful American public. They could have invested more in technology and experimentation; they just chose not to.

Second, the tank and the bomber were developed under starkly different organizational and cultural conditions. The tank was developed in parallel in the 1930s by the infantry and cavalry. Each sub-service saw the tank as an instrument to aid in their strategic mission, not as a fundamentally new way to fight. The cavalry likely missed the greatest opportunity with the tank. It is shocking to read to what lengths many went to defend the horse cavalry, first holding up Poland as an example of a great modern cavalry force and then arguing that German armored success in Poland in 1939 and France in 1940 didn't prove anything. Johnson's book is populated with a number of well-meaning senior Army officers that come off as real boobs in hindsight, but none more so than Major General John Herr, the chief of cavalry in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The armor doctrine created in this environment, where radical ideas were shunned if not outright prohibited, thus reflected traditional missions and tactics. As last as 1938, Johnson notes, there were more hours in the Command and General Staff College curriculum dedicated to horseback riding than to either armor warfare or air power.

The bomber, on the other hand, developed under a much more permissive intellectual environment and one that put a premium on technology over manpower. The story of US airpower during the interwar period is one of a small, elite renegade cadre of officers fighting for independence. In many ways, it was the example of the air corps that prevented a separate armor force from emerging in the infantry. The end result was a dedicated and highly professional core of officers with top technology and a coherent strategy and doctrine for their service, albeit not without serious shortcomings.

Third, despite great differences in organization and culture, both the armor and air forces made similarly disastrous assumptions about how their weapons would be engaged in the next war. The US tanks - greatly inferior to the German tanks, which were designed to fight other tanks - were in fact precisely what the US military asked for. One of the crucial differences in US armor doctrine was the view that the Armor Force (only created in July 1940) was to exploit gaps in the enemies line, not create the gaps themselves. In this sense, US tanks were seen as rather akin to the traditional horse cavalry - a lightly armed and highly mobile force used to harass rear areas and reconnoiter the battle space. The US focused on tanks of high speed, relative light-weight (to allow the crossing of temporary pontoon bridges) and great reliability; firepower and armor were readily sacrificed to achieve these design objectives. The result when going head-to-head with the Panzer Corps - an eventuality the US Army did not see as the prime role for armor units - was slaughter. The key message is that the US Army was NOT supplied with inferior machines, but rather they did not appreciate the looming nature of modern armored warfare and thus entered the war with the "wrong weapons" but they were the weapons they asked for. Moreover, the US Army was convinced that the best way to fight an armored attack was with anti-tank guns. Tank-on-tank battles were seen as wasteful and never really wargamed.

For their part, the Air Corps doctrine and strategy rested on several key assumptions that turned out to be false in practice. First, it was believed that the B-17 and B-24 could defend themselves from fighter attacks because of their rich complement of .50 caliber machine guns. At first this proved to be the case. However, the German Luftwaffe quickly developed new standoff weapons, such as a .37mm cannon that could hit bomber formations outside the range of the bombers' .50 calibers, and the effective use of dive-bombing tactics on unescorted bombing formations. By late 1943, the odds of a US air corps bomber crewmember surviving a 25 run tour were about 35%. Second, it was presumed that the bombers would be able to accurately bomb their targets in daylight hours. By and large, that was not the case. Finally, the strategic air power theory posited that massive bomber formations could cripple a country's ability to make war by knocking out key industrial nodes, such as the production of ball bearings. Again, that thesis turned out to be far from accurate.

In the end, Johnson makes a convincing case that the failures of tank and bomber technology and doctrine in the Second World War were not a product of limited resources or support, but rather the unwillingness of the Army to invest scarce resources into those technologies and reluctance to engage in spirited and realistic experimentation. Thus Johnston concludes: "The Army, in short, was responsible for its own unprepared ness."

Words cannot do this book justice. This is one of the finest studies of military bureaucracies rejecting change and protecting the old order that has ever been written. Anyone who wants to know how big Rumsfeld's challenge is in trying to transform the Pentagon must read this book.

Johnson was a career soldier before going to RAND. He has a deep sense of how military cultures operate. His portrait of the cavalry wing rejecting modernity is humorous and tragic simultaneously. It is a case study in how large bureaucracies protect themselves and their caste system from being threatened by new developments.

Equally, if not more fascinating, is his conclusion that the Air Corps was equally one sided in favoring its theory of big bombers. While the cavalry drove out officers who believed the time of the horse was past, the Air Corps drove out officers who believed fighter planes were powerful opponents for bombers. In some ways the Air Corps self-blindness was as dangerous as the cavalry's total identification with an obsolete past. The refusal to recognize the vulnerability of the bomber meant that bomber crews in Europe would have the greatest risk of dying of any elements of the American military.

Johnson also reports on the tankers fixation with lighter, less powerful "fast tanks" rather than the heavier, more powerfully armed versions the Germans settled on. The American fixation was on a fast tank that could break through and run amok behind enemy lines but was incapable of standing up to German tanks in one on one fights. The result was a tank that led to many more American casualties than necessary. Interestingly, all post World War II American tank designs have been based on the German model of heavy armor and heavy guns.

This is a very thoughtful book filled with quotes from sincere, serious professional military men who were dead wrong but determined to protect their views and to use their position in the hierarchy to get the job done.

It is a sobering story for anyone who would modernize a large, complex military bureaucracy.

This book provides a compelling and well researched account of how the U.S. Army interpreted its experiences in WWI and how it attempted to transform itself from an internal security force into a modern army ready for an other world war. The author does so by reviewing how the Army reacted to the new weapons systems that emerged from World War I (WWI) and were to dominate military operations for the rest of in the 20th Century. He wisely concentrates on two specific weapons systems: armored fighting vehicles (tanks and armored cars), and by extension mechanization in general; and military aircraft (bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft). The author discusses how U.S. Army attempted to further develop these systems and integrate them into its force structure and force planning. It quickly becomes clear that the unprepared state of the U.S. Army at the start of World War II was the direct result of misunderstanding the implications of these weapon systems for modern warfare and the faulty tactical doctrines that resulted form this misunderstanding. The author demonstrates that the extreme austerity imposed on the Army between the wars exacerbated this unprepared condition, but it was not the sole cause of it. In the end, lack of well thought out doctrines impeded not only the Army's efforts to prepare for modern war, but the development of the weapon systems with which to fight it.

This reviewer would suggest that anyone interested in this book would be well advised to also read a second book, "Beyond the Trenches" by General William E. Odom (ret). In it Odom traces the development of U.S. Army doctrine between the wars and the factors preventing the emergence of a really sound set of doctrines and plans.

This absorbing history of the U.S. Army between the world wars and on into the Second World War illuminates not only the past but the present and future. As his title indicates, author David Johnson traces two main themes: the Army's responses to the challenges and opportunities presented by the airplane and tank. He shows that these responses, although very different, were both seriously inadequate in ways that proved very costly in the test of war -- and he shows why and how these inadequacies developed. Johnson, a former professional Army officer and National War College instructor, is not dedicated to any theoretical framework. He tells the story very clearly and directly, relying on deep research in primary sources, and draws his lessons from the events as they occurred. He understands the people and the institutions and organizations within which they acted, and he views them sympathetically but dispassionately and objectively.

The story Johnson tells is not one of inevitable historical forces but of human decisions. The decisions were made under the influence of institutions and events, but were not determined by them. They were not catastrophic, but they were well short of optimum. Many Americans died as a result of deficiencies that could well have been avoided.

Because it does not tie the story up in a neat theoretical package, Johnson's book offers no canned recipe for success in responding to present and future challenges and opportunities. Instead, it provides a rich source of inspiration and caution, and a stimulus to thought.

There are a few disappointments, although minor in comparison to the book's strengths: (1) I would have liked to have seen a deeper analysis of the part played by technological factors. While we are too often treated to on-dimensional purely technological approaches to such questions, I feel Johnson goes a bit too far in the other direction. (2) Johnson's citation system for sources, while adequate for a brief article, becomes frustratingly cumbersome at book length. It is too often a real struggle to unearth exactly what his source for a given point is.

Another book that can profitably be read as a complement to this one is William O. Odom's _After the Trenches: The Tranformation of U.S. Army Doctrine, 1918-1939_ (Texas A&M U. Press, 1999).

Will O'Neil

Just read this, and thoroughly enjoyed it- I particularly liked the honesty throughout re. the state of Nasa and some of the decisions made over the years. Flaws from the earliest to the current days of the Shuttle program are explored, but this is no witch-hunt- just an honest appraisal of things that went wrong with the Shuttle- but not forgetting, all the great, great things that went right, right too. Wets your appetite for the forthcoming new launch system, too! Recommended.

This is one of the finest books I have read in a while on the space shuttle. With a comprehensive look at how we got into the shuttle, remained there for close to thirty years and now are finally in the process of getting out of. If you don't have acopy of thie book...go out and get one.

I discovered this book while doing research on Kennedy Space Center and found it really helpful. As someone who was "there" during much of the story covered by Duggins, I found his information to be accurate and enlightening. It was also a lot less dry than most of the other related books I was reading on this topic. In particular, I was impressed by his candid narrative. Many of the books I reviewed on KSC and NASA seemed to gloss over issues that may have put the agencies in a bad light, but Duggins was able to tell the truth about what happened using an unbiased voice.

Final Countdown is a great book about NASA's plans for the future of space travel and their intentions of ending the Space Shuttle program. This book explains how the Space Shuttle program evolved along with it's success and tragedies. Author Pat Duggins wrote this book in a way to where it is not only entertaining but educational as well. A nice addition to a space travel book collection!

Final Countdown is an excellent book for Baby Boomers who grew up watching the massive Saturn 5 rockets of the Apollo program lumber off the launch pad and dreamed, one day, of drinking Tang on the Moon or taking a Space vacation. Final Countdown is an excellent book for anyone, regardless of generation, interested in politics, science and man's future in Space.

The book is a well researched history of how America's shining achievement in Space technology was a mistake, a design of political compromise, constrained federal spending and promised secret military payloads. Frank Lloyd Wright would have told NASA that form must follow function, but in the case of the Shuttle, Wright would have learned that function had not been fully defined.

Final Countdown also gives the reader a look at Space exploration beyond the Shuttle program and how NASA has returned to mission-based designs for selecting the vehicle that will likely carry man back to the Moon and possibly on to Mars.

Beyond the well documented history of the Shuttle itself, author Pat Duggins introduces readers to the personalities and individual career turns that ultimately gave life to the Space Shuttle program. He tells the unlikely story of how the demise of plans for a spy agency's secret space program helped shape the Shuttle. Along with the Shuttle's achievements, the book takes readers through the pain and lessons learned from the disasters of Challenger and Columbia.

In the end, the book serves as a wonderful "Program Guide" to the Final Countdown of the Space Shuttle Program and gives readers a reason to anticipate with excitement the next chapter in the story of manned space flight.

Completed by Curtis Peebles after the death of Milt Thompson the story of Flying without Wings is told by a pilots pilot. Milt has the uncanny ability to mix the technical engineering side of experimental aviation and then put the reader in the pilots seat for a hair-raising ride from 40,000ft down to the ground.

Lifting body research may be an esoteric subject, but is fascinating for anyone interested in aeronautics; Thompson was in the cockpit during most of the testing of the early forms, and draws an exciting picture of the high risk drama of these pioneering flights. The final chapters link the early research in the 60s with the later design and construction of the Shuttle, and the reader will understand how these "mad monk" test pilots really made the orbiter possible, by proving the validity of the core design. Finally, one interesting note is how the early testing was done with minimal funding, and a lot of do-it-yourself common sense by the teams at Edwards. Those days are certainly gone. Highly recommended if you have an interest in the field, and at least a basic understanding of the terms, concepts, and physics of flight.

If you like experimental aviation, this is a must read.

Milt thompson has written a great book on the hardships of the early attempts at flying with out wings. He describes in detail how the M2F1 was designed and tested and how the program eneded with the futuristic X-24B. A great book and a must read for aviation buffs of all ages.

The late Milt Thompson, one of the top NASA research test pilots during the glory days of flight testing at Edwards, kept an extensive diary of notes during his years of work. The book digests these notes and presents them in a very readable format that truly captures the imagination of the reader, describing a time of grassroots research and the determination of individuals at Edwards. Thompson, the pilot, and other great engineering minds, notably, Dale Reed, truly believed that there was a better way to bring spacecraft back to earth that didn't involve splashing down somewhere in a large ocean. Their efforts resulted in the construction and testing of the Lifting Bodies, giving us a body of knowledge that led to the Space Shuttle concept and will continue with NASA's newest efforts...the X-38 and Venture Star single stage to orbit concepts. The book is a must for anyone with an interest in this field of aeronautical history.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is suffering from any form of depression. I was diagnosed with major depression just over 3 months ago and due to all the horror stories of prozac (which my doctor had prescribed me) I decided there must be other solutions to beat it, which is how I stumbled across this book. The advice this book has given me so far has given me the knowledge and power to change my lifestyle and thinking patterns for the better. It is amazing how a few changes in diet and choice of food supplements can greatly improve your being. My advice to people would be to read this book before starting a course of anti-depressants as like me, you may find you don't need them. Highly recommended.

I always wondered why a cup of coffee gets me going every morning. After reading Food, Mood & Money, I understand the workings of my body and realize the importance of increasing my dopamine in the morning, which gets you up and going. According to the author, Helmut Julinot, drinking a cup of coffee gets your dopamine going. Also, I never knew about serotonin and how it's involved with making you calm and I learned that you can achieve that calmness by what you eat. I've cerainly changed my eating habits, especially dinner, so that I sleep much better. The advice and information on vitamin/mineral supplements is excellent and I've modified my supplementation. I know this sounds hard to believe, but since I have been following Julinot's advice, I have been making more money! Additionally, the book is well-written, an easy read and the stories are engaging. For me, it's the bible for a good life!

Throughout my life I have continued to read and study whatever I could pertaining to blood sugar regulation problems and how various supplements could help alleviate the problem to a great degree. I learned that poor insulin regulation is the major factor in many serious health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, weight control and depression. When I purchased my
first copy of Food, Mood and Money five years ago, I was excited to find how all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I was excited to learn how what we eat affects our moods and our ability to reach our full potential in today's world. It made perfect sense to me and I found it to be true and effective. After my first purchase of Food, Mood and Money I went back to
school and have achieved so much more in these last five years than I ever believed was possible. It still amazes me when I think of it. I have just bought my second copy, and I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants to become a dynamic, successful human being by overcoming anxiety, apathy and shyness.

Being a late-bloomer it took me a few months after receiving a complimentary copy of this excellent book before I realized what a gem I had in my hands. Suffering from seratonin deficiency, Mood swings etc all my life I finally got a handle on what I saw as imbalances in my system and not a mental health issue.Going boldly forth I never looked back. I introduced this book to friends and even my Dentist (her holistic apprach to Dentistry made her open to this) who by removing my amalgam fillings made the Info in that book even more effective.To have an incredible amount of Information in Food, Mood, look at the supplement section,I say Bravo! and thank you for sharing a lifetime of research into energy,awareness and empowering us to make informed decision in regards to life and health.Highly recommend this book to all who like to take their sense of well-being seriously.

This book contains suggestions on healthy living that frankly I have never heard before. It combines the known benefits of exercising with not only proper eating habits but suggests what to eat and what time of the day to eat them. When you do these two things along with supplementing your diet with vitamin and mineral supplements, you may experience a much happier and longer life. This was a very eye-opening book for me. I would suggest that if you read this book, you also read "What Your Medical Doctor Does Not Tell You About Nutritional Supplements, May Be Killing You!" Another book everyone should have in their personal library!

J.Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have, through compiling this masterful collection of readings, provided a wonderful resource for those of us who want to fundamentally change teacher education in the United States. Since the early part of the 20th Century, what would later become colleges of education, have been dominated by the often-misapplied progressive theories associated with John Dewey. The results of this intellectual dominance include a lack of respect for academic subject matter, a fuzzy romanticism focused upon teachers as societal change agents, and a lowering of standards for aspiring teachers. Progressive orthodoxy so dominates education colleges that future teachers often don't even learn the counter arguments the "forgotten heroes" of this book so effectively make.

Anyone who is involved in the preparation of teachers and is a proponent of such common-sense notions as the paramount role of academic content in teaching, high standards for students, and the teacher's responsibility for academic and moral classroom leadership, should buy this book. Although the most recent essay was penned in 1960, the arguments of these intellectual opponents of the then-emerging progressive conventional wisdom are, for the most part, as fresh today as when written. Carefully reflect upon the essays of such master teachers and scholars as William C. Bagley and Issac L. Kandel who are included in the anthology. Then, if you are involved in teacher education make sure your students experience the genuine intellectual diversity represented in the contents of this book. This is a useful tool in the mounting effort within many education schools to end the progressive intellectual monopoly.

¨Education, true education, should liberate"

By Richard K. Munro MA, Renshaw Fellow UVA 2004

Null, Wesley and Diane Ravitch, Eds. Forgotten Heroes of American Education , Information Age Publishing, Greenwich Connecticut, 2006



America, all is not lost. In 1987 we had The Closing of the American Mind by the late Allan Bloom followed by E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, Diane Ravitch's classics Left Back (2000) and The Language Police (2003). 2006 gave us John Dewey and the Decline of American Education by Henry Edmondson and now FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION edited by Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch. Here we have essays -some published for the first time- from great American educators of the so-called "Traditionalist/Essentialist" school such as William Bagley, Isaac Kandel, Charles DeGarmo, and Charles Alexander McMurray among others, including the forgotten essays of the John Dewey in which Dewey criticizes the excesses of some of his colleagues of the liberal-romantic-progressive school. Here, in FORGOTTEN HEROES we have great appeals to the traditional foundations of wisdom, learning and education but also appeals to her scientific, cultural as well as her authentically progressive foundations. These thinkers have much to say to 21st century America about curriculum, teacher training, the foundations of a proper educational philosophy, student discipline, and the purpose of formal schooling in a free society. Ravitch and Null have added splendid short biographies and commentaries not to mention a list of recommended readings.
Much of the book is dedicated to the vital and still pertinent essays of William Bagley. Like Victor Davis Hanson, Bagley was no mere ivory tower intellectual; he worked in agriculture and owned his own farm. Bagley had wide experience as a classroom teacher, a principal and superintendent. Bagley favored a free liberal education for all Americans regards of their IQ or future occupation. In "The Army Tests and Pro-Nordic Propaganda" Bagley opposed the determinism, extreme social Darwinism and deep racial supremacy of the 1920's as inhumane, un-American and anti-democratic. Bagley's essays CRAFTSMANSHIP IN TEACHING, THE IDEAL TEACHER and EDUCATION AND UTILITY are literary jewels, well-crafted, lucid and informative. Bagley was right to recognize the profound anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism in liberal/romantic/progressive theory. Bagley is a teacher's teacher: he respects the craft of teaching. Bagley understands that teaching is above all a calling and an act of service, sacrifice and love. Teaching could never be an entirely mercenary profession, though a man would say today taking a "vow of poverty" might be going too far! Bagley was one of the first educators to be concerned about the 'blob' the growing non-teaching bureaucracy which considered the classroom teacher to be at the bottom of the profession. Ever the supporter of high educational standards Bagley made a very strong case that the fundamental factor in academic excellence was based on the quality of the classroom teacher.
Isaac Kandel, another of the "forgotten heroes" made his "Address at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University" in 1940, unpublished until this volume. In this age of terror this address is very timely. In it Kandel calls for an educational philosophy with integrity based on deep gratitude for the practical wisdom, Natural Rights philosophy of the Founders as well as the true roots of the "dignity of the individual", America's Judeo-Christian heritage. Only by recurring to fundamental principles, Kandel believed, could we hope to preserve our free society. Kandel wrote "The basic principles of democracy are rooted in the religious traditions of Jew and Christian alike." "Man ....cannot live on negation...he needs values that have stood the test of time." "Education, true education, should liberate~ it should cultivate the genuinely free man, the man of moral judgment, of intellectual integrity.....intolerance and hatred are the foundations of the new [ totalitarian] ideologies~ Love thy neighbor as thyself is the injunction of the Hebrew prophets and of the Golden Rule." These are just some of the gems from Isaac Kandel on a rigorous curriculum: "It is foolish to except a child to grow up in a right social direction along the lines of his own felt wants as it is to expect a man to find his way in unfamiliar territory without a map or a compass. Organized subject matter constitutes that map..." Kandel on low standards: "the harm done American education by the cult of...superficiality is incalculable." Kandel warns that the disunity in America could come again if we fail to provide an education "to inculcate faith in the ideals of democracy....without well-defined content, [there is]... inevitably... a negation of ideals and faith... a repudiation of the inherited forms of culture and of humanity without which the surface changes in the stream of life are mistaken for the waves of the future." Kandel's essay on "Character Formation" (1959) is one of many outstanding contributions. According to Kandel, an important aim in education throughout history is the ideal of character formation. Kandel writes: "with the declining influence of religious institutions....with the extension of mass media...the task of character formation becomes more and more difficult... all these conflicting influences may be added a certain relaxation of standards, both intellectual and disciplinary...the 'get by' attitude." Kandel is so cultivated and yet so moving and so lucid that for his essays alone FORGOTTEN HEROES would be worth it.
Recently I was told the story of a well known professor of education who said: "It doesn't matter what they [teachers] know...All that matters is how they teach." In other words process counts not knowledge, not virtue, not wisdom! So it is true the Deweyite Sophists have taken over the academy particularly in "Teacher Ed"! This is just one true life story of the doctrinaire liberals who dominate in Teacher's Colleges. There Deweyite learning or doctrine -by this I mean the Romantic-progressive school -a traditionless tradition- is practically an established religion. As Hanson, Thornton and Heath have written previously in BONFIRE OF THE HUMANITIES; "... the American academic culture is one of the most glaring failures and embarrassments of modern society itself."
The thesis of FORGOTTEN HEROES is that the tradition of teaching and learning going back to Plato and Aristotle represented by Bagley, Kandel and others has never been extinguished despite the long 20th century ascendancy of Dewey's Liberal-Romantic-Progressive school. The whole point of Bloom, E. D. Hirsch, Null and Ravitch is until teachers improve in quality, and schools improve in discipline and organization all the money in the world will do no good. Disoriented, demoralized American teachers, unprepared by barely relevant teacher education programs, crushed beneath the wheel of a bloated, misguided bureaucracy, unsupported by their own administrations, may have become `weak sisters' (and brothers) in, reading, writing and the ACADEMIC disciplines. Bagley, Kandel and the other FORGOTTEN HEROES knew that well-educated classroom teachers were crucial to the survival and success of the American Republic. FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is truly splendid anthology for specialists or for the general reader. It is not an exaggeration to say FORGOTTEN HEROES is a book that ought to be familiar to every concerned school teacher and wise administrator, every involved parent and thoughtful citizen and every dedicated civic and community leader.

June 22-July 2 2006

J. Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have co-edited a superlative book of the best of those " forgotten heroes " who, many years ago, established the great tradition of teaching teachers. Null and Ravitch have crafted the selected writings of William C. Bagley, Charles De Garmo, William Torrey Harris, Isaac Leon Kandel,Charles Alexander McMurry, William C. Ruediger and Edward Austin Sheldon. If you have never heard of these names, then it is time that educators are exposed to their seminal ideas. If you are familiar with their ideas and conceptions, then this text will reinvigorate and reinforce the importance of their work and theorizing. These authors have a clear, pristine vision of what education could and should be. These authors have crafted their essays into invigorating, stimulating, energizing monuments to the work of pedagogy. In these essays, one is exposed to " marvelous alliteration of the liquid consonants" as well as to " the beauty of their grandeur or the nobility of their underlying thoughts". This book should be read three times- once for the intellectual and historical understanding of their work, once for the stimulating writing style and once to understand the foundations of educational thought and the importance of educational theory and history. In this age of " No Child Left Behind" we need to emphasize the importance of not leaving any " Forgotten Heroes of American Education " behind. Parents whose children are considering the teaching profession may want to present this book to their high school or college offspring to provide them with a foundation and understanding of American education and those who sculpted the basics of American teacher training. This book is a superlative example of "the best of some of America's greatest thinkers as well as teacher trainers". It is hoped that this book will enable educators to keep alive the thoughts of Aristotle, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Herbart and Froebel in the current educational climate. The profession owes a sincere " thank you " to Null and Ravitch for this impeccably edited, thought provoking text.

This is a very important book for people interested in American education. The book helps us to move beyond the sad complaining that goes on these days when the topic of public education is brought up. Anytime education comes up among my friends, all that anyone does is complain. Our situation is certainly bad, but this book will actually help us to improve things. The heroes, as they call them, that Diane Ravitch and J. Wesley Null have included in the book have some very important things to say to us. They fought against the nonsense that has done so much damage, but they also did more than complain. The book includes some real ideas for helping us to move beyond griping to making things better by giving us more teachers who are well-prepared to teach in today's difficult culture. Read this book, and I say suggest it to your friends, especially if they are in education. Any book that Ravitch is involved with should be taken seriously by people who care about education.

This book has the potential to revolutionize teacher education. Null and Ravitch have put together some very powerful essays that have a lot to teach us about curriculum, teacher education, philosophy, and the history of education. Everyone involved in teacher education must read this book. I am a teacher, and every teacher who cares about our profession also should read this book as well. And the price is reasonable, too--especially for a 650 page book.

Getting Science Grants provides readers with a complete introduction to the grant writing/submitting process.

It is important to move beyond the perspective of being the salesperson of your research. You need to know the perspective from the other side of the granting process and what will impress your program manager in your proposal.

Thomas Blackburn is an experienced grant writer and as well as having significant experience on the other side as an assitant program administrator. Here he provides researchers with the skinny on finding funding agencies, writing excellent abstracts and proposals, preparing budgets and moving beyond very good to excellent and super proposals.

Buy it, read it and share it with your colleagues!

I found "Getting Science Grants" to be a thoroughly readable, no-nonsense little book that demystifies the grant making process. Blackburn's experience both as a researcher and as one charged with the responsibility of reviewing grant applications shows through. His book provides a step-by-step approach that, if followed, should lead to a higher probability of success and avoid wasted time and frustration occasioned by poorly prepared and submitted applications. Those just entering the sometimes perilous fight for funding will find this book indispensable, and even old hands will find it provides handy reminders of all of the points we think we know by heart, but sometimes forget to apply. This little book is a "must read" for anyone whose professional life depends on getting funding for his or her research. You simply can't afford to ignore it.

Among the relatively few books available that focus on getting science grants, "Getting Science Grants" is unquestionably the very best of the bunch. Blackburn has the perfect mix of credentials (college professor, research scientist, grants officer) to craft this concise treatment of the whole enchilada, from concept development through proposal writing, revision, submission (and resubmission), and grant administration. Giving frank, qualified advice in friendly prose, the author succeeds in creating more than just a "how-to manual" for scientific proposal writing. In roughly a hundred pages, this book shares insight on the science research funding process that would only be acquired by a decade or more of study in the school of hard knocks. As one whose career success is significantly influenced by external funding success, I couldn't recommend Blackburn's book more strongly.

For those of us who indulge ourselves in the pursuit of science, the constant quest for funds to support our habit can occupy more time than any actual "hands on" research. Justifying ones existance to a beaurocratic body, and begging for money is at best embarassing (over here, pick ME, I'm better than all those other tossers who want your cash), and at worst, downright terrifying.
At least, that's how I felt recently as I was faced with the prospect of submitting my first ever grant application. Not only did I struggle to convince myself I had ideas and skills worth selling, I had no idea of how to go about it. Sure the application form gave a vague idea-title, abstract, background-what did they actually want to KNOW? How was I supposed to sound confident and competent without sounding like an egomaniac? How should I present a solid, reasonable proposal without it being deathly boring or promising unachievable breakthroughs?
Finding Thomas Blackburn's "Effective Strategies for Funding Sucess" was a real stroke of luck. It not only answers questions such as these in an entertaining and easily read style, it includes a series of exercises that allow you to give good (and bad) strategies a go BEFORE you face the real thing. It gives a detailed description of what most funding bodies want to find out from each section, a discussion of how these criteria can be met, and descriptions of what differentiates a bad from a good from an exceptional application. It also contains many sensible (but often overlooked) reminders such as "read the abstract again after finishing the detailed proposal section to make sure they agree with one another".
I read the book before starting, and then used it to guide me as I wrote each section, and found that I was much more confident the way I wrote than I would have been otherwise. I also found that I felt better about my own abilities as a scientist, and much less of a fraud, because the final product looked and sounded very professional. I would recommend this book to anybody who is contemplating their first application, or who finds grant writing a harrowing or unsuccessful occupation. I also think that working through the steps outlined in the book could also be used as a self-assessment tool, because having to examine ones own research in terms of funding application is a great way to check the direction and focus of what you are doing right now. I thank Dr Blackburn for providing such a readable, comprehensive and timely guide. I hope it helps many people as much as it helped me.

This book is GREAT!!!! Why do they make us learn all this by trial and error with tenure and support for our graduate students at stake!!! They should be training us in this kind of stuff in graduate school!!!! I now know why my proposals so far have not been very successful, and, better yet, I now know what I can do about it and I actually can hardly wait to get started!

You can tell from what's in the book that it was written by a real funding insider and I learned more about grant writing in the few hours I spent reading it than I have from all my previous proposal-writing efforts and discussions with colleagues and friends to date. I now understand that a successful proposal is not just about the science, as much as all of us would like to think it is. The author makes clear all the elements you really have to take into account, on top of the science, to have the kind of proposal that can compete successfully at places like NSF and NIH. He even demystifies budgets, how to interpret and handle reviews (the good, the bad, AND the ugly), networking with agencies, and what it is that a successful proposal needs to emphasize and where. He even gives you advice on how to find agencies where you have the most success so you can build a strong funding track record quickly. Lots of good insights that I never would have thought of (and I am going to take his advice!).

On top of all the excellent information in this book, like it says above, it is an EXTREMELY easy read. The author has a way of talking about the subject that makes you feel like you are chatting with a friend at the bar who is giving you the inside scoop on everything. I read it in two nights in about an hour or two each night. It doesn't get much better than this! I highly recommend everyone who has to write grants to fund their science to read this book. It will be the best investment in time and money you will ever make!

Glen Edwards: The Diary of a Bomber Pilot is now available as an e-book for Amazon's neat new Kindle reader. The downside: no photos, glossary, or chapter notes. The upside: the e-book is less than one-fifth the cost of the hardcover edition. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

This book is nothing short of captivating. The author provides brief explanatory narratives to connect entries from Edwards' diaries, beginning with flight training, then combat in North Africa, and the early post-war years in America.

Just ferrying his airplane from the States to North Africa was a big adventure, considering the rather primitive nature of navigation aids and weather forecasts in that era.

Combat in Africa and Italy is described in detail, some of it surprising. For example, a military advance had a down side. Moving forward to a newly captured air field meant that the American aviators were subjected to more ground attacks by German aircraft.

The second half of the book covers the early post-war years, when American factories were building new airplanes almost faster than the Air Force could flight test them. Many exotic, one-of-a-kind vehicles are described here.

To some extent, the reader has a sense of foreboding at this point, knowing that this story is destined to end as unhappily as the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Yet this knowledge serves to accentuate the daily events described here.

There are many memorable tidbits in this book, such as tales of a man who actually intimidated Chuck Yeager!

Glen Edwards is portrayed in these pages as so heroic, embodying so many virtues, yet so modest and unassuming. This is someone you would want to know and to spend time with. Through this book, you can.

"The amount of reseach Ford wove into Glen Edwards: The Diary of a Bomber Pilot" is remarkable. The result is a wonderfully readable tale of one man's contribution to freedom and flight. Nice to 'know" such a man as Edwards and to have Ford, a historian/author who brought him back to life."

I can't put this book on Glen Edwards down! God, I hope he makes it thru North Africa because I think I've fallen in love with him. What a can-do kinda guy. So positive -- capturing the essence of each place so well.

This book makes him live again.

A superb book about Glen Edwards. I thoroughly enjoyed and empathized with his career. The pace was like reading a literary version of Ravel's "Bolero" with the crescendo building to the final flight. The description of the crash was wrenching, superb.

A pilot's read! Bravo Zulu!

Paul M. (USN Ret.)

This little gem is insightful, profound, and funny.

Each page relates a scripture to contemporary quotes or cultural ideas. I love to browse it, and it often leaves me meditating on the topic covered. Other pages make me laugh my head off. Easy to carry and enjoy when traveling or waiting somewhere. Also quite useful to provoke interest in a topical study.

The scriptures lead us to the higher Christian life-real meat here-without preaching or someone elses interpretion. Great for the office, attache case, or waiting in airport terminals.

Powerful, fun, and inspires. Applicable to all denominatins and ages. I think this will make a fantastic gift ror any occasion, for both Christians and non-Christians. This is an undiscovered gem. You must check it out.

Thanks for considering my review-if it influences you to purchase the book, I would love to hear feedback! One of the best (if not the best) devotional I have ever found. Also highly recommend the devotionals in this series for teens and kids.

This little gem is insightful, profound, and funny.

Each page relates a scripture to contemporary quotes or cultural ideas. I love to browse it, and it often leaves me meditating on the topic covered. Other pages make me laugh my head off. Easy to carry and enjoy when traveling or waiting somewhere. Also quite useful to provoke interest in a topical study.

The scriptures lead us to the higher Christian life-real meat here-without preaching or someone elses interpretion. Great for the office, attache case, or waiting in airport terminals.

Powerful, fun, and inspires. Applicable to all denominatins and ages. I think this will make a fantastic gift ror any occasion, for both Christians and non-Christians. This is an undiscovered gem. You must check it out.

Thanks for considering my review-if it influences you to purchase the book, I would love to hear feedback! One of the best (if not the best) devotional I have ever found. Also highly recommend the devotionals in this series for teens and kids.

This little gem is insightful, profound, and funny.

Each page relates a scripture to contemporary quotes or cultural ideas. I love to browse it, and it often leaves me meditating on the topic covered. Other pages make me laugh my head off. Easy to carry and enjoy when traveling or waiting somewhere. Also quite useful to provoke interest in a topical study.

The scriptures lead us to the higher Christian life-real meat here-without preaching or someone elses interpretion. Great for the office, attache case, or waiting in airport terminals.

Powerful, fun, and inspires. Applicable to all denominatins and ages. I think this will make a fantastic gift ror any occasion, for both Christians and non-Christians. This is an undiscovered gem. You must check it out.

Thanks for considering my review-if it influences you to purchase the book, I would love to hear feedback! One of the best (if not the best) devotional I have ever found. Also highly recommend the devotionals in this series for teens and kids.

This little gem is insightful, profound, and funny.

Each page relates a scripture to contemporary quotes or cultural ideas. I love to browse it, and it often leaves me meditating on the topic covered. Other pages make me laugh my head off. Easy to carry and enjoy when traveling or waiting somewhere. Also quite useful to provoke interest in a topical study.

The scriptures lead us to the higher Christian life-real meat here-without preaching or someone elses interpretion. Great for the office, attache case, or waiting in airport terminals.

Powerful, fun, and inspires. Applicable to all denominatins and ages. I think this will make a fantastic gift ror any occasion, for both Christians and non-Christians. This is an undiscovered gem. You must check it out.

Thanks for considering my review-if it influences you to purchase the book, I would love to hear feedback! One of the best (if not the best) devotional I have ever found. Also highly recommend the devotionals in this series for teens and kids.

This little gem is insightful, profound, and funny.

Each page relates a scripture to contemporary quotes or cultural ideas. I love to browse it, and it often leaves me meditating on the topic covered. Other pages make me laugh my head off. Easy to carry and enjoy when traveling or waiting somewhere. Also quite useful to provoke interest in a topical study.

The scriptures lead us to the higher Christian life-real meat here-without preaching or someone elses interpretion. Great for the office, attache case, or waiting in airport terminals.

Powerful, fun, and inspires-one of the best (if not the best) devotional I have ever found. Also highly recommend the devotionals in this series for teens and kids.

Tim O'Grady creates exquisitely wrought, archetypal prose that could even overpower Pyke's perfect documentary photos. (Without offense to Walker Evans, now I'm wishing Pyke had been around to collaborate with James Agee).

Amazingly, requires very little interest in Ireland or the Irish - O'Grady is from Chicago anyway and this book is more about experiences of all mankind. His crystalline narrative is hardly bound by ethnicity.

Extraordinary and inspiring new use of the verb, can. If you read poetry, you couldn't regret buying this experimental novel.

... then buy, borrow or steal a copy! Never before have I read such a good exploration of Irish exile. Stranded in a dismal flat in England, the protagonist remembers his happy childhood in Ireland, the rough living and working conditions in England, and his only love. The language is quite simple and often Hiberno Irish, but deeply imaginative and so lyrical, that the line between prose and poetry gets blurred. The beautiful black/white pictures added to this book, and the author's ability to portray Irish music help to give an insight into Irish culture. Sometimes it's like watching a documentary, and suddenly you can't help but feeling you're listening to a song; a song of heartache and terrible longing. Despite far from being soppy the book is very moving in the end; you actually hope for a happy ending. But that wouldn't be Irish.

This book is beautiful and tragic and joyful and moving, all at the same time and independently over the course of the story. Through the poetic language of the text and the poetic imagery of the photos, the drama of every day life in Ireland is brought across as quietly epic, if such a thing can be.

I am very familiar with the works of old time Irish writers including the works of James Joyce who wrote about Ireland in exile. I still don't know much about modern Irish novelists until I had the opportunity of meeting and listening to parts of Timothy O'Grady's novel at Perth Writer's Festival early this year. Immediately afterwards I bought a copy and later talked to Timothy briefly about writers in exile and their struggle with dislocation. This story is not only about dislocation and exile. This is the story of a man coming of age and following a journey during which he struggles to make sense of his life, dislocation, loss of love and loneliness.

This lyrically crafted novel is a great collaboration between O'Grady and photographer Steve Pyke. They collectively create a visual journey of a musical Irishman, his journey from one location to another, looking for work and the love of his life. O'Grady's begins his novel with a description of the protagonist's life back at home as a child:

"This room is dark, as dark as it ever gets - the hour before dawn in winter. I have sounds and pictures but they flit and crash before I can get them..."

For me, it is a metaphor of not been able to recreate the places and the people he left behind as a result of his journey.

O'Grady ends his novel with a similar narrative:

"In the room now a breeze comes in through the window and on it there is the smell of spring. Downstairs the girl turns on her radio... There is a time after long work when you can look for strength and there is nothing there....

In the morning light I let go."

In between, we learn about his journey, his recollection of Irish landscapes, the places left behind, the music he played and his love. But this is not just a mere description of a nostalgic mental journey of an Irishman in exile. This can happen anywhere, anytime, and to anyone.

Reading this novel is like watching a visually crafted documentary embedded with voice and music that we can see and hear.

I'm glad that I met O'Grady and read his novel as my introduction to modern Irish novelists. But this novel had another positive effect on me. When I met O'Grady I was writing a novel about my own dislocation. This novel inspired me to look at my private journey again and again, and continue my writing in exile!

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the beauty and tragic of moving from one place to another.

... then buy, borrow or steal a copy! Never before have I read such a good exploration of Irish exile. Stranded in a dismal flat in England, the protagonist remembers his happy childhood in Ireland, the rough living and working conditions in England, and his only love. The language is quite simple and often Hiberno Irish, but deeply imaginative and so lyrical, that the line between prose and poetry gets blurred. The beautiful black/white pictures added to this book, and the author's ability to portray Irish music help to give an insight into Irish culture. Sometimes it's like watching a documentary, and suddenly you can't help but feeling you're listening to a song; a song of heartache and terrible longing. Despite far from being soppy the book is very moving in the end; you actually hope for a happy ending. But that wouldn't be Irish.

You will yellow pen this book to death! Plan on buying a second just to have a clean copy. Page after page has insightful behavioral understanding that marketers have not necessarily ignored, but are only learning about now thanks to the evolution of modern scans. Today, can we see and understand the way we receive and react to stimuli. In HABIT, Neale Martin has brought us to the new science of positioning to the way the brain works. This book is for anyone in business or human sciences.

This short and useful book's Big Idea:what we do is automatic. People take decisional shortcuts because it makes their lives easier. They are unaware of even doing so. What's this mean for business and marketing? With a customer or clinet, toss out the consultant idea of doing a satisfaction survey---it only reminds them that they have options and interurpts the automatic decision making, elevating your service to the attention of the "executive" mind. Reinforce at the right times: salepeople entertain before the prospect makes a purchase and thus the prospect thinks if I buy, then the good stuff stops so they don't. The timing of the conditioning is ,well, the cart before the horse. Always be honest and protect the brand. Customers are constantly scanning to see if you do. Appeal to emotions. Facts and benefits get you no where. There is lots more. A good book for shaping how you look at selling and business development.

Provocative and insightful. Dr. Martin's book is a thought provoking piece for anyone in the Marketing and General Business arena. Highly recommended!

Bottom line: this is the best book on (customer) loyalty marketing since Reicheld's "The Loyalty Effect" and a great complement to it given its explanation of the neuroscience behind customer behavior as it relates to habit.

As marketing becomes increasingly accountable for top- and bottom-line impact, understanding the concept of habit as it relates to customer behavior is critical.

If you buy at Amazon you know how easy -- and habit forming -- it is to shop here. This book demonstrates how the power of habit, relative to customer purchase and usage decisions, has been grossly undervalued.

"Habit" gives the scientific context by gradually explaining how the human brain works in easy layman's terms and then illustrates how this significantly impacts the difference between the expected behavior (traditionally just supported by marketing research) and actual actions taken by an individual.

Having practiced loyalty marketing for 20 years now, this book is more than a theory but is in fact an overlooked reality of customer behavior.

This book was kind of good. It was certainly better than OK, but it didn't set my world on fire. Its message is something any marketer should consider. However, I wasn't particularly impressed with the author's writing ability. Some of the chapters were overly technical. Some of the points made are arguably bunk. And I didn't think the chapters flowed from 1 to 13.

What I got from this book is that marketers can sell to customers one product at a time (and waste their time and money). Or they can sell to the customer the first time and let the customer habitually buy the product on autopilot thereafter. Some call this "Customer Loyalty Marketing." It would be nice if there really was a way to do the second way exclusive of the first. But I don't think it can be done.

If you are a stock trader trying to make a buck playing with stock, then you can read books that advocate Technical Analysis. And you can read books that advocate Fundamental Analysis. Each book will probably say their way is better. However, in reality, the most successful traders are ones who use both ways to analyze stocks. I mention this because I think the best marketers are the ones who have marketing plans that involve selling one product at a time and also involve creating purchasing habits in their customers. By the way, the book's title probably should have been PURCHASING HABITS, and not just "Habit."

The instant book being reviewed seems to promote the idea that marketers are wasting their time selling one product at a time. And it does this without writing a clear easy-to-follow set of chapters that do not build upon each other. As a result, I don't buy into the author's message. However, after reading this book one will definitely be reminded that selling one product at a time is not the ONLY way to go. 3.7 stars!

PS. Take a look at the Search Inside feature Amazon provides for this book. There you can examine the Table of Contents and get a better feel for what this book covers.